Soup Season

White Bean Soup with Ham, Pumpkin hand Chard: If, like me, you have a pie pumpkin in your possession and don’t want to make pie, this soup is a great option. (Or substitute your preferred hard winter squash.) I used a little package of ham chips in place of the ham hock the recipe calls for, as all of the ham hocks at the grocery store were smoked, and this just seemed easier. Pancetta cubes would also work here. I’m not a big fan of chard, so I used kale, and I used the entire small bunch instead of the few leaves called for. And last, I used crushed tomatoes in place of whole, as it turned out I didn’t have any whole. I think I might like that better. You could easily adapt this for the crock pot – Cook’s Illustrated has a technique where you microwave the onion and garlic to soften them for crock pot recipes, and that’d work just fine here. Add the beans and kale 30 minutes or so before you want to eat and that should do the trick.

Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup: This shares a similar flavor profile to the soup above, but is vegetarian – the flavor boost comes in from roasting the veggies and pureeing some of them into the stock. As previously discussed, this is really good and you can do some of the prep a couple days ahead.